he's young--enough to--take a beating--and I'm
going to--give it to him--and it'll be a hospital--job--sir--"

Cappy Ricks ruffled Bill Peck's aching head with a paternal hand.

"Bill, old boy, it was cruel--damnably cruel, but I had a big job for
you and I had to find out a lot of things about you before I entrusted
you with that job. So I arranged to give you the Degree of the Blue
Vase, which is the supreme test of a go-getter. You thought you carried
into this stateroom a two thousand dollar vase, but between ourselves,
what you really carried in was a ten thousand dollar job as our Shanghai
manager."

"Wha--what!"

"Every time I have to pick out a permanent holder of a job worth ten
thousand dollars, or more, I give the candidate the Degree of the Blue
Vase," Cappy explained. "I've had two men out of a field of fifteen
deliver the vase, Bill."

Bill Peck had forgotten his rage, but the tears of his recent fury still
glistened in his bold blue eyes. "Thank you, sir. I forgive you--and
I'll make good in Shanghai."

"I know you will, Bill. Now, tell me, son, weren't you tempted to quit
when you discovered the almost insuperable obstacles I'd placed in your
way?"

"Yes, sir, I was. I wanted to commit suicide before I'd finished
telephoning all the C-o-h-e-n-s in the world. And when I started on the
C-o-h-n-s--well, it's this way, sir. I just couldn't quit because that
would have been disloyal to a man I once knew."

"Who was he?" Cappy demanded, and there was awe in his voice.

"He was my brigadier, and he had a brigade motto: It shall be done. When
the divisional commander called him up and told him to move forward with
his brigade and occupy certain territory, our brigadier would say: 'Very
well, sir. It shall be done.' If any officer in his brigade showed signs
of flunking his job because it appeared impossible, the brigadier would
just look at him once--and then that officer would remember the motto
and go and do his job or die trying.

"In the army, sir, the _esprit de corps_ doesn't bubble up from the
bottom. It filters down from the top. An organization is what its
commanding officer is--neither better nor worse. In my company, when the
top sergeant handed out a week of kitchen police to a buck, that buck
was out of luck if he couldn't muster a grin and say: 'All right,
sergeant. It shall be done.'

"The brigadier sent for me once and ordered me to go out and get a
certain German sniper. I'd been p